All My Sons
Hartford Stage
Hartford
May 3, 2024
Warning: This review contains significant plot spoilers.
There’s so much to say about this wonderful play, but I want to focus on Joe Keller (played by Michael Gaston), the patriarch of the Keller family and the closest thing the play has to a main character.
Joe is a successful businessman who supplied engine parts to the military during World War II. He knowingly ships faulty equipment, resulting in the deaths of 21 servicemen, one of whom may have been his son Larry. To avoid jail, he places the blame on his business partner and family friend Steve.
The play begins three years after those events, when his surviving son Chris (Ben Katz) prepares to announce that he’s going to marry Larry’s girlfriend, Ann (Fiona Robberson), who is Steve’s daughter.
Joe Keller is not a man seized by guilt or remorse. Throughout the play, a seething resentment burns just beneath his otherwise friendly demeanor. How dare anyone question the means by which he made his success, much less his family that has benefitted so much from the money. He resents any hint of guilt he may feel, and actively rejects it.
No, Joe Keller is a man seized by consequence. He’s lived his entire life as a “great man” because the people around him have supplemented his lies. His wife Kate (Marsha Mason) accepts a fantasy of her son being alive rather than face the painful truth. His son Chris never acts on, or even thinks on, his doubts about the story his father tells. Ann hides the letter detailing Larry’s death. As the consequences begin to pile up, it seems that Joe might finally do the right thing and admit his guilt.
And then the gun goes off.
The play ends shortly after Joe’s suicide, so the play literally ends with a bang. But it also ends with a metaphorical bang, as Miller confirms that Joe Keller has been a coward throughout the entirety of the play.
It’s a devastating moment, because until then I thought that Joe was conniving, unscrupulous, and ruthless. While these aren’t positive character traits, they are compelling traits for a villain in a story. They imbue the villain with a certain charisma and menace that can draw viewers in.
So it’s shocking when Miller rejects all of that. Joe Keller doesn’t give an “ends justifies the means” speech or some cold-blooded monologue. He reveals that he’s afraid of going to prison. It makes Joe even more despicable because his actions that destroyed two families are the result of his cowardice. Paradoxically though, it makes his suicide even more tragic.
Despite his actions, his domineering and mean-spirited belittling of those around him, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. But my greatest sympathy was reserved for his family. Kate laments how he’s yelled at her for three years as she’s struggled to maintain a false worldview that crumbles when her son tries to announce his marriage, which should be a happy occasion.
And poor Chris. He tells Joe, “I didn’t see you as a man, I saw you as my father,” describing him as a towering example of success and decency. Not only does he see that crumble in front of him, but he also is the one to discover his father’s body.
As outstanding as the writing is in the play, none of it would work without an actor who was up to the task to bring Joe Keller to life. Michael Gaston delivers. His Joe Keller is a ball of fire, with layers of emotions peeling away throughout the play until he utters the eponymous line: “They were all my sons.” I teared up at that moment, and I marveled at the ability of both Gaston and Miller to come together to deliver such a singular moment.
All My Sons is an example of the kind of art that only live theater can produce, and the power of the right words said by the right performer. I stayed up all night thinking about Joe Keller’s last words. They will stay with me for a long time.
NEXT
All My Sons continues at Hartford Stage through May 5.
Jamil is headed to Enfield for Free Comic Book Day.
